


Figure Something Out

by glam0urmuscles



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Episode continuation, F/F, Post-Episode: s13e03 The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies Reboot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-20 12:50:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16137599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glam0urmuscles/pseuds/glam0urmuscles
Summary: The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies Reboot aftermath. “There’s only one man on this plane,” Dee tells her. “OK, well then I will figure something out,” the Waitress slurs back. The Waitress does figure something out, eventually. So do Mrs. Mac and Bonnie Kelly.





	1. Thursday

**Author's Note:**

> Harold, they’re lesbians. (I was going to do a rewrite of the ep, but then I thought hey why not make everyone soberish and able to consent? Also I am incapable of writing smut, as the below will bear out. Or at least as Chapter 2 will bear out, because I got frustrated with myself and decided to just post what I have already.)

At the end of the day she doesn’t beat Dennis. She fucks that disgusting troll Frank for, like, 30 seconds, then falls into a shame spiral so spirally she ends up being carted off the plane in North Dakota along with all the women who drank Artemis’s ayahuasca tea. She should not have let Dee talk her into joining a drinking contest. Dee always talks her into drinking, or drives her _to_ drink, or whatever. She’s an alcoholic, and the Reynolds twins are a constant collective threat to her sobriety and sanity.

She comes to in the emergency room, an IV of fluids in her arm and Dee on the gurney next to hers. “Where are we?” she groans.

“Fargo, North Dakota sweetie,” chirps a nurse in scrubs with teddy bears on them, bustling among the women evacuated from the plane. “How are we feeling?”

“Like one of those bears is sitting on my head.” She gestures towards the nurse’s scrubs with her chin, and the sudden motion is a terrible mistake.

“Gosh, I’m not surprised!” the nurse replies, marking a few things on her chart. “I’ve never seen so much bright pink vomit in my life!”

“Toxic femininity,” she slurs. It’s not a good joke but in her defence she’s still very drunk.

“It’s toxic _masculinity_ , asshole,” snaps Dee, apparently conscious. “Can’t be toxic femininity because it’s not the hege...” she hiccups, “hegemonic system governing western society, so it’s not what men _and_ women _and_ everyone else define themselves against.”

She knows that, she does, but Dee has a lot of nerve being coherent enough to say it. “So goddamn smart. Nerd.”

Dee does her best to sit upright. “Well you know, I did go to Penn. Where the fuck did you go?”

“To Penn!” How does every single Reynolds and all of their friends, associates, and fuckbuddies have collective amnesia? “Oh my god Deeandra we were both Psych majors!"

Dee looks at her blankly.

“We had at least eight classes together!” Nothing. “I was best friends with your roommate?” More blank staring. “You know, the one you tried to _set on fire_?”

“Waitress, the only people who can remember so many unimportant details from college peaked very young. It’s sad, really.”

“At least I can remember your name."

“Well I’m very memorable,” Dee says smugly.

She’s got her there.

****

At the end of the day she and Bonnie are the only two left standing, although in Bonnie’s case standing is an overstatement. At any rate they’re both cleared to continue to California, which is how she ends up smoking a well-deserved cigarette in the middle of a suburban baseball diamond. Why her idiot son told her this was a must-see is beyond her. It’s some fucking grass. They have grass in Philadelphia.

Bonnie is still happily babbling nonsense and clutching her arms as she ushers her back to their waiting cab, but she’ll be ready to pass out soon. The hotel reservation must be in Dee’s name, or maybe Frank’s, but they’ll have to make it work.

Sure enough, Bonnie conks out on the ride. If she wanted to make the other woman cry later she would complain that the head resting on her shoulder was far heavier than it had any right to be considering it was filled with nothing but air. If she wanted to make her cry now she’d shove her off violently. She knows she won’t do either. The longer they live together the more unsettling she finds the face Bonnie makes when she cries.

The hotel they’re dropped off at isn’t a shithole, which means it’s definitely booked on Frank’s credit card. She deposits Bonnie on a sofa in the lobby and makes her way to the desk.

“Checking in. Frank Reynolds.” The concierge doesn’t bat an eye as he looks up the name.

“Hi!” a perky voice comes from behind her. “You were on our flight, right? From Philadelphia?”

She turns and takes in two pink-hatted young women before grunting in the affirmative.

“So crazy, right?” asks the one on the left, who has cropped red hair, oversized glasses, and a flannel shirt. God, sometimes she wishes she was younger.

“I hate tea so I missed the worst of it,” says the one on the right, who had dark curls and even darker eyes. She definitely wishes she was younger.

“And I never touch liquids on flights because I hate having to use those tiny bathrooms,” says the one on the left, wrinkling her freckled nose.

She grunts again, in approval this time. “For the best. There was a _man_. Laying in wait.” She jabs her thumb in Bonnie’s direction. “Accosted her and god knows who else.”

The two women are horrified, appropriately so in her opinion. The man’s a monster and so are his kids, which is something she wishes her stupid son could see. She half listens to them chatter about predatory men and the patriarchy as she signs Frank’s name on some paperwork and accepts two room keys from the concierge.

She nods at the pair as she starts back towards Bonnie, but the pretty redhead holds up a hand to stop her. “If you want to share an Uber to the March tomorrow, we’re planning to leave around 9. We could meet up out front? I know we’re strangers, but Katie and I would be so honored to march with you and your partner. You must have so many stories to tell.”

Katie nods along solemnly. “Intergenerational solidarity is so important.”

She snorts, but it turns into a cough. “Not much of a storyteller.” And not much of a partner, though some small part of her is always pleased when she broadcasts on the right frequency.

“Well I’m sure we’ll be too busy chanting to talk much anyway,” the redhead reasons. “I’m Alicia, by the way.” Alicia holds out her hand.

She tells them her own name as she shakes it quickly, followed by Katie’s. “Not sure we’ll make it. This one will probably sleep through it.” She gestures at Bonnie again. “Have fun though,” she adds belatedly.  

Katie and Alicia look genuinely let down. “That’s too bad, after coming all this way,” Katie sympathizes. “Well if she’s feeling better by tomorrow night we could all grab a drink and we’ll tell you about it? There are some good ladies’ nights around because of the March.”

She could not give less of a shit about the March, or ladies’ nights, but something in her wants to impress these pretty young women who are at least ten years younger than her own son. It’s a futile, vain impulse, but would it stop her if she were a man? No it would not.

“Alright, look us up.”

****

The Waitress shakes her fists in the air in time with her chanting. “Visit Dennis! Visit Dennis! Visit Dennis!”

“California! California!” Artemis echoes, half-mockingly. “Mama still has a lot of product to move.”

“Both of you calm your tits,” Dee snaps, punching something into her phone. “We can’t do anything without money, and god only knows what happened to Frank, so,” she raises a finger at the Waitress, “I will _call_ Dennis, but our goal is to get money for tickets back to Philadelphia, not to insert ourselves into his delusional heterosexual family-man scheme.” It’s clear that the Waitress wants to make some comment about Dennis, heterosexuality, inserting, or all three, so Dee adds a threatening glare to her raised finger as she dials.

Dennis doesn’t answer his cell, so she tries another number.

“Hello, Sinclair residence!”

“Hi is this Mandy?” Dee asks, turning up the sweetness quotient in her own voice to mirror the other woman’s.

“Sure is! What can I do for you?”

“I’m so sorry to bother you; I’m not sure if you remember me? I’m Dee, Dennis’s sister?”

“Oh.” The disappointment that she’s not chatting with a telemarketer and is instead on the phone with her son’s aunt is palpable. “Yes of course I remember you.”

Dee does her best to stay upbeat. “Yes well I found myself with a layover in Fargo and I thought, why not check in on Dennis and little Brian Junior while I’m here?”

“It’s just Brian now, actually.”

“Right, right. Of course. Well you wouldn’t happen to know when Dennis will be home, would you? He isn’t answering his cell.”

There’s a long pause. “I’m so sorry Dee, I can’t say.”

“Oh is he staying somewhere else? Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed!” Her half-manic laugh sounds false even to her. “If you could just tell me where I can find him I’ll be out of your hair.”

“It’s just not my place to tell you that, Dee. I really am sorry.”

She laughs again. “What do you mean? He’s my brother and you can’t tell me where he is?”

Mandy sighs. “Look, why don’t you come by the house for dinner, see Brian for a bit, and I’ll tell you what I can? I’ll text you the address.”

“Goddamnit!” Dee hangs up angrily. “That fucker is avoiding us. Do you know he gave Mac some joke number? And now he’s even got babymama in on it.”

“Did you tell him I was here?” asks the Waitress.

“You literally heard every word I said. No I didn’t tell him you were here! I didn’t even talk to him!”

“Three beautiful women, stranded in the untamed wilderness of North Dakota without a penny to their names,” laments Artemis. “How will they keep warm during the cold, northern nights?” She catches the eye of a man passing through the hospital corridor. “Will they have to sell their luscious bodies to earn their bed and board?”

The man stops. He doubles back towards them. “So sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear.” He smiles ingratiatingly. “There’s a Salvation Army shelter on Roberts Street that should have beds available. Someone at the front desk will be able to give you directions.”

“Goddamnit!” Dee explodes again. “No! Go away! We are not staying in some crummy shelter filled with rats, and bedbugs, and, and, and MEN!” She’s a half-hearted feminist at best, but no one is taking her women’s reboot experience away from her.

“Yeah! We’ll keep _each other_ warm, mister!” The Waitress steps forward aggressively as though she’s not 5’2” with a pixie cut.

“Deeandra, reconsider,” Artemis pleads as the man backs away. “It’s 15 degrees out and we’re utterly destitute. Penniless! Most terribly cold it was,” she begins to monologue, “it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet…”

Dee remembers something at the same time as the Waitress does. They catch one another's’ eyes before turning towards Artemis with matching predatory grins.

“Penniless, you say Little Match Girl? I seem to remember someone having $300…”


	2. Friday Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the day of the Women's March and still no one's figured out a dang thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no smut! I really thought this would be done by now.

It takes a little while for them to convince her to part with some of her hard-earned cash, but eventually Artemis agrees to cover a cheap motel for the night while they figure things out, meaning while she earns even more cash to cover their flights home. She could hardly ignore the Waitress’s genuine panic at the idea of spending a night in a shelter, and Dee had always known how to beg to get exactly what she wanted out of her. She was putty in the other woman’s finely-boned, long-fingered hands.

They stop by the Salvation Army anyway, because it’s January in North Dakota and their luggage is in California, and a shelter is the only place they can get coats this late because Fargo isn’t a real city. The Waitress refuses to go inside, looking pleadingly at them with her huge eyes. “I can’t go back, I can’t!” Dee stays with her in the foyer, occasionally running a calming hand down her back while they both shiver in their thin white t-shirts.

While they wait practically outside, Artemis selects the three least seedy coats she can find.

“The nineties are back, bitches!” She tosses Dee a pullover Starter jacket featuring decidedly non-Philadelphia team the Charlotte Hornets. Dee scowls, but Artemis just winks. “Brings out your eyes.”

Next she hands the Waitress a ski jacket in a truly eye-watering--but so _iconic_ \--combination of blue, purple, and pink. She shrugs it on mechanically.

For herself Artemis keeps a seasonally-inadequate belted suede coat accented with slightly matted fur. She figures she needs to look her best so she can sell the rest of her crystals and tea, while the other two only need to make it to the motel in one piece.

Men honk at them as they walk down the road towards their motel -- a surprising number considering their boxy and unflattering second-hand coats. Perhaps it’s because she’s been cast in the role of breadwinner, but Artemis feels surprisingly protective of the other women. Or perhaps it’s the way Dee and the Waitress seem to huddle together. “Keep driving, fellas!” she shouts. “They’re not for you!”

“Yeah!” the Waitress hiccups, still a little drunk on pink wine and solidarity. “We’re for each other!”

It may just be the weather, but Artemis thinks Dee’s cheeks redden a bit.

Interesting.

****

The first time she wakes up she feels the luxurious hotel sheets under her, smells cigarette smoke, and assumes it’s the 80s and some john has taken her somewhere nice for a change. She rolls over and falls back to sleep.

The second time she wakes up the sun in the room is blindingly bright, she smells cigarette smoke, and she’s 63 years old but doesn’t know where she is or how she got there.

Bonnie starts to cry. “I’m too young for dementia!” she sobs, opening and closing the drawers in the bedside cabinets looking for clues. Then again to be safe. Then again. She repeats this with every cabinet and drawer in the room.

She’s in the process of flicking the bathroom lights on and off, still sobbing, when the room door swings open and Mrs. Mac walks in carrying two cups of coffee.

“Pat, oh thank god!” Bonnie wails, throwing herself on the ground at the other woman’s feet, wrapping quivering arms around solid legs. Pat grunts, the one that means she thinks Bonnie is a silly woman and that she wishes she’d get off of her.

“You got drunk and you’re in LA,” Pat intuitively answers the questions Bonnie is still blubbering too much to ask. “Let go,” she instructs, “I gotta put this coffee down.”

Bonnie releases the other woman’s legs and sits back on her heels. Pat kicks the door shut behind her before moving to put the coffees on the dresser. She pulls sugar and creamer packets out of her pockets and begins adding them to one of the cups. Bonnie quiets but doesn’t move.

Pat turns and looks back at her. “Get up,” she says. Bonnie does. She walks over and takes the sweetened coffee from Pat. “Drink,” Pat says. Bonnie does. Pat watches approvingly, meaning without scowling or grunting even once. Bonnie almost preens.

“Missed the March,” Pat tells her as she goes to sit on the edge of the bed, and ah, there’s another blank in Bonnie’s memory filled in.

She turns up her nose. “I’m glad. Harlots on parade! Free love and free abortions!”

“You’d fit right in.” It’s not said as an insult, just a wry reminder. Pat once told her that because she’d taken so long to figure herself out she always makes sure to remember who she once was and to respect that person and her choices too. She thinks Bonnie should do the same.

Those may not have been her exact words, but the sentiment was there. What had really happened was that they had a visit from Charlie’s friend Ronald, and after he went home Pat smiled, a real smile. “Took him almost as long as it took me. Stupid. Must run in the family.” Then she’d lit a cigarette. Later Bonnie caught her smiling again at an old picture of her and her son that suddenly appeared on their mantle. “Can you believe I suspected about him then, but I still didn’t know about me?” she asked when she noticed Bonnie looking. She shook her head. “So goddamn stupid.”

Bonnie knows she’s stupid too, though Pat hasn’t said so very much recently.

“Some of ‘em were nice girls,” Pat adds as Bonnie joins her at the edge of the mattress.

“Well some harlots are very nice people, it says so in the Bible,” Bonnie reasons, eager to have Pat approve of her again. This earns her a snort from the other woman.

“Met a couple when you were passed out. Want to go for drinks with us tonight. Real young, though, we might slow them down.” The caffeine in her coffee was making Pat more chatty.

“Young like Charlie’s age?” Bonnie knew she could keep up with Charlie.

“Could be Charlie’s kids, maybe, if he started when we did.”

Bonnie’s face lights up. “I could be a grandma!” And if she could keep up with her son she was sure she could keep up with her grandkids. This earns her another snort, the kind that blankly informs her she is not a grandmother, and to take a look at her life and her son’s life and stop kidding herself.

She drops it. They go back to sipping their coffees in companionable silence.

****

Waking up in a motel in North Dakota isn’t any smoother than waking up in a hospital in North Dakota. Her head is still pounding, bed springs are jabbing her all over, and her mouth is so dry it feels like it’s full of hair.

She sits up groggily and surveys her one-room kingdom. Lots of depressing beige, aside from the pile of coats on the one chair, and the bedspreads which are decorated with a jungle motif that has faded from green to teal. Artemis is sprawled beneath one of them on the other bed, which she had claimed for herself on account of her being the one paying. She and Dee are beneath the other.

And _oh god._ The hairy feeling in her mouth? That’s really hair. Dee’s hair. And at least some of those bed springs are Dee’s bony limbs. She and Dee had spent part of the night fully entwined, like puppies in a basket, or teal jungle vines, or some third thing she wasn’t going to name until she was safely out of this bed and across the room somewhere.

Fuck.

Spitting out hair and shrugging out from under too many blankets, she slams her way into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her. Shucking her jeans and t-shirt--which she really shouldn’t have slept in, but she isn’t in the mood to entertain the thought that sleeping in her bra and panties may have been a wiser move--she more or less throws herself into the shower.

She turns the water as hot as it will go and stands under the spray until it runs cold. She stands there some more.

There’s a light knocking, and she jumps as the bathroom door cracks open.

“Gotta piss!” Artemis calls out. “You’re taking forever. Not dead are you?” Artemis’s hand wraps around the shower curtain as though to pull it back and check.

“No!” she shouts, startled. “I’m fine. I’m alive, I mean.” Artemis’s hand recedes.

“Well don’t peek, I’m on the commode.”

“OK.”

Minutes pass. “Are you still there?”

“Yup. Thought I may as well shit too. Make sure the pipes are nice and clean in case any plumbers want to take a look, if you know what I mean.” In her opinion it’s far too early in the day for references to anal, but she suspects that’s never the case for Artemis.

A few more minutes pass, then she hears a flush.

“Now you girls behave yourselves while I’m off finding some sad white ladies to buy the rest of my crystals,” Artemis calls. “Shouldn’t be too hard out here. I’ve left you some money for food from the vending machines, but it’s not much so don’t try to leave the hotel.” She doesn’t wait for a response before closing the bathroom door with an audible click.

She waits a beat before turning off the shower, drying herself, and getting dressed.

The lights are still off in their hotel room when she tiptoes back inside, and Dee is just sitting up, blinking at her through half-lidded eyes.

“What time is it?” Dee asks. “Where’s Artemis?”

She looks at the clock. “Just after 2pm. And you just missed her. She said she’s going to sell her crystals, and not to leave the hotel.”

Being told what to do wakes Dee right up. “That bitch! I’ll leave the hotel if I want to. Why wouldn’t I leave the hotel? What if I want to go sightseeing? There are sights here, right?” She climbs out of bed, seemingly ready to explore right this second. “Or eat something! What am I supposed to eat? It’s not like there’s room service in this place.”

“Well we don’t have money for any of that, but she said she left us some for the vending machines, so we won’t starve.” A silver glint catches her eye from near the base of the boxy television. Dee notices it at the same time and they walk over together.

“That bitch!” Dee reiterates.

The silver is a small mound of quarters. Artemis didn’t leave them a single bill. Beneath the coins is a note on hotel stationary reading, “For Ho-Hos for my Ho-Hos. I took both room keys so don’t go anywhere!”

“That bitch,” she agrees.

****

Katie and Alicia do remember to look them up, which is flattering, but the room is in Frank’s name so they don’t have any success. As luck would have it they still cross paths in the lobby when she and Bonnie are on their way back from dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Bonnie, already a little tipsy, takes to the girls immediately. “Look at your beautiful hair!” she coos at Katie, petting it. “You know, I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”

Oddly they seem to find Bonnie’s comments, and her touchy-feely drunk floozy act, charming. Katie and Alicia laugh as Bonnie takes their arms and allows herself be led back out into the balmy California night. Pat trails behind, lighting up a cigarette.

The two girls lead them to a bar that from the brick facade looks like an average dive. Bonnie seems fine, happily rambling about her favorite Philadelphia bars, and Pat relaxes.

Inside, the atmosphere is less “dive bar” and more “wild sapphic fever dream.” Disco balls hanging from the ceiling reflect pink light all around, and burlesque dancers shimmy in strategically elevated positions throughout the club. Signs behind the bar proclaim Ladies Night specials including Rubyfruit Jungle Juice and Jennifer’s Bodyshots. With the exception of a few masc-of-center people who may or may not be men, there’s not a single man in sight.

Pat realizes distracting Bonnie from the lack of men and fending off another freakout for as long as possible is now her mission for the night. “What’s everyone drinking?” she asks. “First round’s on me.”

“You’re so sweet!” Alicia says, the first person alive to ever utter those words in Pat’s direction. “I’ll take a vodka tonic.”

“I’ll try the Tessa Thompson Collins. Thanks!” Katie adds.

Pat grunts and takes Bonnie’s elbow. No need to ask what she’s drinking; aside from the pink wine yesterday the last time either of them had anything other than a Coors was probably 1989. “Help me carry.” She begins pushing them both towards the bar.

“Ouch! Stop grabbing me!” Bonnie hisses. There was a time Pat would have tweaked her elbow extra hard in reply, but now she drops it immediately. She doesn’t want to examine this in the middle of a crowded bar, but it probably has something to do with Bonnie’s general inclination to do whatever she says these days. She can’t mess that up.

Bonnie gathers herself up, straightening her back. “Thank you.”

Pat just grunts and continues towards the bar. Bonnie follows, as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How will Dee and the Waitress occupy themselves all day in the hotel? Can Mrs. Mac and Bonnie continue to pass as a couple (without Bonnie being aware of it) at the lesbian bar? Maybe one day I will finish this fic and we can both find out!  
>   
> A few points:  
> 1) Oops my love of Mac McDonald slipped into this fic. I couldn’t figure out what to do with Bonnie and Mrs. Mac, partially because they are canonically awful to each other, and partially because they are terrible mothers and I love their sons. Once I decided to FIX IT and make Mac’s mother love him like she should it all just became very soft.  
> 2) A long, polysyllabic name would have been funnier for Mrs. Mac, but I went with a simple, classic Pat. Pat McDonald is my butch queen. (She’s still technically married to Luther because her religious beliefs are as warped and old-school as her son’s and she doesn’t believe in divorce.)  
> 3) Ho-Hos are a Hostess brand snack cake. I know Philly is a Tastykake town but I presume Artemis is familiar with the full breadth of convenience confectionery available to the modern consumer.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Look, the actual Women’s March is in January, and the Super Bowl is in February. I understand that in Sunny the Women’s March comes after the Super Bowl for some reason, but I am ignoring that Soy Boy Beta Cuck’s statement in favor of a logical timeline.  
> 2) I don’t buy into the “Dennis is in a mental hospital” theory, but I played with it anyway.


End file.
